This Research Line explores the relationship between design, digital fabrication, bio-fabrication and bio-based materials. The Design and Empowered Fabrication Research Line proposes the following sub-themes:

• Growing materials as an innovation playground. Through the conscious and original use of digital fabrication, this topic explores the potential of Growing Materials innovative processes (e.g., mycelium and kombucha’s growth) to expand the applicative and performative possibilities of such materials.
• Additive manufacturing for fluid-dense materials. This topic concerns the experimental verification of the possibilities offered by additive manufacturing for fluid-dense materials (e.g., technogel, paste extrusion, etc.) in various application fields, up to the design and prototyping of production processes for new classes and types of artefacts.
• Bio-printing for innovative healthcare. This theme explores bio-printing potential as a process that enables new protocols and prospects for a more controllable and sustainable healthcare.
• Digital fabrication for zero-waste. This theme intends to explore and develop projects connected to digital fabrication processes in line with the “zero-waste” philosophy. These projects may encompass the creation of bio-based materials or the integration of bio-manufacturing into waste reduction processes.
• Digital layers embedding in the smart materials production processes. This theme explores the possible integration of digital semi-finished products in the production of new smart materials to sprout the creation of “augmented” objects (e.g. wearables, etc.) thanks to the combination of digital components and on-site and on-demand production.

This Research Line explores the relationship between design and healthcare from an open and participatory innovation perspective. The Impactful Healthcare Research Line proposes the following sub-themes:

• Patient Innovation and customised products-services for disability and social inclusion. This theme explores the potential of patients and associations (patient innovation) involvement in the co-design and co-development processes of product-service systems to solve the specific challenges and needs related to rare diseases and disabilities and, therefore, improve healthcare access, interaction with clinicians and specialists, and home care management.
• Smart products-services for prevention and monitoring. This area explores the development of innovative digital tools and technologies for the independent and autonomous monitoring health state (prevention, personalised care) of citizens and patients of all ages, sexes and social backgrounds. In parallel, this area also aims at developing innovative and customised co-designed solutions for prevention that can involve policymakers, healthcare professionals, companies, citizens’ and patients’ associations.
• Circular and low-cost healthcare products-services. This theme intends to develop circular, distributed and low-cost product-service systems that use digital design and manufacturing to reduce environmental impact and costs of access to care by exploring the areas of most significant impact innovation in the medical, health and pharmaceutical sectors. 
• Innovative solutions for the response to chronicity. In achieving significant milestones in improving citizens’ quality and average life span, contemporary society has seen an increase in chronic diseases. The chronification of certain diseases (e.g., cardiovascular, respiratory, neuromuscular diseases, etc.) amplifies the number and complexity of the medical community’s challenges. As a result, this topic explores and supports the development of innovative products-services that improve the collaboration between patients, caregivers, and the health system and tackle care protocols both in the domicile and in the hospital environment.

This research line explores the relationship between design, making, and new areas of interactive products-services development characterised both by: 

– the use of medium-low complexity open-source technologies and;

– the connection with advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. The Augmented fabrication for augmented citizens Research Line proposes the following sub-themes:

• Open and distributed design for sustainability. This theme, closely linked to the Circular Economy, explores the design of innovative reuse, repair, recycle systems that open and distributed production models enable. More specifically, this area intends to reduce the waste supply chain, through a conscious and strategic use of digital fabrication, by exploring the design and re-design of objects (and their subsystems or components).

• Product-service solutions developed through parametric software and generative algorithms. Parametric-generative modelling technologies are becoming more accessible and usable by end-users, to the point that we can talk about a possible high-tech evolution of the Do-It-Yourself. The design challenge proposed by this theme regards the experimental use of parametric and generative design processes to create innovative artefacts that explore formal and structural solutions, usually not achievable through industrial manufacturing models.

• Augmented and virtual making. The COVID-19 emergency highlighted both the fragility and resilience of making practices and places such as Fab Labs and makerspaces. However, together with the spaces that host them and the communities that populate them, these practices need to initiate new methods of engagement, access, and participation to be nurtured. Hence, this theme explores the design of new tools and services that enable collaborative design, prototyping and manufacturing practices within augmented and virtual “places of making“.

• Open-source innovation models for a proactive and resilient society. This theme focuses on exploring and developing experiments that highlight the potential of open source (open design, open software, open hardware) to increase citizens’ resilience and self-sufficiency and promote sustainability and circularity in cities.
• Wearable and body empowerment for urban interaction. This theme explores the design of innovative tools and devices to improve the citizens’ experiences and skills within the urban environment, especially in relation to the development of products-services designed for a more connected and liveable future in cities (e.g., solutions for the health and well-being of citizens, sustainable mobility, etc.).

This Research Line connects design and circular innovation by working on the themes of metabolisms’ transformation (urban and non-urban), individuals and organisations’ behavioural changes, and, therefore, the production of social and environmental impact. The Circular Metabolisms Research Line proposes the following development themes:

• Product-service systems to develop urban circularity. Starting from the study of emerging technologies capable of contributing to the digital transformation of urban metabolisms, this theme aims to design new solutions for the monitoring and tracking of the flows of goods that cross the city, to define integrated logistics systems and to develop systems for the smart storage of products.
• Co-creation processes for the circular transition on an urban scale. The active involvement of all urban actors – public institutions, private individuals, citizens, universities, Fab Labs, local businesses – can be crucial for defining, experimenting, and implementing new circular practices. This theme proposes the development of processes, methods and tools to encourage the co-creation and co-design of innovative solutions for the urban circular economy in sectors such as agri-food, furniture or fashion.
• Tools and methods to validate and evaluate circular transition projects. To ensure the effectiveness of a project or action for the circular transition of an economic or production context, it is necessary to validate the developed design processes’ effectiveness and sustainability, paying particular attention to their replicability and scalability in different contexts. This research area, still little explored from a design point of view, entails the definition of tools and methods that support the measurement, validation, and quantitative and qualitative evaluation of design actions dedicated to circularity processes.
• Circular solutions for urban agri-food systems. Among the various issues our society is facing, the conscious management of natural resources represents a fundamental aspect of our planet’s sustainable development. Indeed, even cities are today subject to a real and profound metamorphosis concerning agri-food sustainability issues, in which complete cycles of production, transformation and consumption of resources repeats daily. Starting from the study of urban and peri-urban agriculture models already developed, this theme explores new design approaches that favour the use of natural resources more intelligently: reducing waste, cultivating biodiversity, and spreading a food culture influenced by circular behaviours